Mutual
by OwlBeWritingYouFrequently
Summary: The first meeting and all the days in between. A look at how Roy and Riza met and ended up where they are today. Lots of hints of Roy/Riza. An ongoing process. Rated M to be safe (graphic in later chapters, some child abuse)
1. The Beginning

**Author's note: This was something I started writing when I should have been writing a paper for finals. Oops :P**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of its characters**

"And if you are to be my apprentice, I expect absolutely no funny business. This is serious work," came her father's muffled but stern voice through the door. Riza had heard her father and the boy enter the house and walk along the long corridors to his study. She did not know who the boy was. Her father had told her nothing in advance. But upon listening at her father's study, she discovered that this dark haired boy would become their houseguest, learning from her father. And to be frank, Riza did not like this. She frowned and waited for her father to continue. The boy was talking now but it was too quiet to hear. She pressed her ear up against the door. The voices stopped and the door swung open. Startled, she fell backwards from her crouched position.

"For goodness sake, Riza," her father scolded. Placing his hand under her arm he promptly pulled her up to face the boy.

"Riza, this is Roy Mustang. He's going to be my apprentice. I've set up a room for him in one of the guest rooms in the East wing. You will show him there after dinner." The boy stood in the doorway of the study. He was a bit taller than Riza, though not by much. His shaggy black hair hung just above his eyes. His expression was blank though his eyes held some sort of annoyance or perhaps contempt, Riza could not tell.

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Hawkeye," Roy said, his voice monotone. _Miss Hawkeye_? Riza made a face of disgust.

* * *

Riza and her father had always eaten in silence but the quiet that hung between the three of them currently was much more tense. The two children sat across from each other and regarded one another with animosity. She glared at him as she pushed her peas around. His face remained as expressionless as before though his eyes still revealed some sort of negative feeling. Her father did not pay them any mind.

Once their food was finished, plates were cleared and cleaned. Her father went back to his study and Riza showed Roy to his room. As her father had said, his room was in the East wing of the manor, up the stairs above the kitchen. It made her happy that her room was on the opposite end of the house.

It was a simple room; beige walls, hardwood floors, a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a bookcase with various alchemic books, and two windows facing the garden. Roy stepped inside the room and looked around.

"Thank you, Miss Hawkeye," he said dryly. She nodded in response and turned away to go to her room. Apprentice is what her father had said to him. Apprentice meant he would be here for a while. She hoped that time would fly by quickly, for she did not like Roy Mustang at all.

* * *

The days began to pass by painstakingly slow. Riza attempted to avoid Roy at all costs. If she saw him coming down the hallway she would duck into a room and wait until he passed. If she found him studying in the library she would quickly leave and find somewhere else to go. Meals were even more awkward and uncomfortable. She often found herself leaving the house altogether and spending her days outside reading, gardening, or anything else she found made time go faster. So soon the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months as a routine developed. Avoidance, silence, no acknowledgements.

One sunny afternoon she had been out in the garden. Weeds had begun sprouting around the blooming buds so she put herself to work and pulled them. Above her on the second floor of the house Roy's window was open. She could see the top of his head, presumably sitting at his desk reading. She didn't pay attention though. All of a sudden her father's booming voice interrupted the sounds of nature. He was in Roy's room, and he was furious. She looked up at the window. Her father was yelling but she could not make out the words, though she knew what was coming; she didn't even need to see him to know it. A moment more of yelling passed and, as she'd predicted, she heard the sharp sound of a slap. She felt bad for the boy – not bad enough to seek him out and comfort him – for she too had experienced her father's wrath and abuse. But what could she do; this was the way of her father. She turned her attention back to the garden.

A minute of two later, Roy emerged from the side door off of the kitchen, his hand clutching his cheek. Riza looked up and stared. Roy stared right back at her. She didn't know what to do; she did not like this boy, but he looked on the verge of tears. And lord knows she had wished that someone had been there to comfort her the first time her father hit her. So perhaps she could spare him a few kind gestures. She stood up and walked over to him. Roy's eyes never left her face. When she reached him she took his hand away from his cheek to get a good look at the damage. It had started to bruise a deep purple. It was also a bit swollen. She turned away and started in the direction of the hose. When she turned her head and saw that he wasn't following, she rolled her eyes and went back over to him.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his hand. She held onto it as they went around the corner of the house, letting go when they reached the tap. She twisted the knob and a slow stream of water began trickling out of the end of the hose.

"Bend over," Riza said. She put her hand on the back of his head and pushed down, perhaps a bit harder than she ought to. She pressed the hose to his cheek and let the water soothe him. They stood like this for what seemed like hours. When Roy stood up straight, she turned off the hose. It looked as if some of the swelling had gone down but his eyes were now red and puffy. She decided not to acknowledge it.

"Better?" she asked. He looked up at her, surprised that her tone was not as harsh as it usually was anytime they spoke (which of course was rare but whenever they did speak her words were like thousands of bee stings).

"Yes, a bit," he replied. Now she looked up at him with surprise, for his voice was neither dry nor monotonous like it usually was. Their eyes met briefly before flitting away in embarrassment; his to the hose, hers to the puddle that had accumulated on the ground. She poked at the water with her bare foot.

"It's not so bad, the beatings," she said nonchalantly. "You get used to them." Roy brought his eyes back to her face, his brows furrowing and overall expression growing bitter.

"He hits you?" His voice had lost its gratitude, replaced by coldness.

"Uh huh." She continued disturbing the water with her foot. He didn't know how to respond, so he focused his attention on the ripples in the puddle. Several minutes passed before Riza pulled her foot back, causing him to come out of his trance.

"Uh, so, thanks, Miss Hawkeye," Roy said awkwardly. Riza scrunched up her nose.

"Why do you call me that?" she asked, somewhat annoyed. He looked confused.

"Your father told me that I am to address you as such," he said. So formal, she mused.

"My name is Riza," she said defiantly. She stepped in the puddle to splash him and walk away, shoving into his shoulder slightly as she went. She headed back around the corner of the house and sat down once more in the garden. He remained where he was, stupefied and soaked. And then for the first time since he had arrived at the house, Roy Mustang laughed. Such a fascinatingly stubborn girl! He peaked around the corner of the house to look at her, a small smile on his face. Riza was sitting on her knees in the dirt pulling at the weeds that surrounded the flowers. Every part of her body and yellow sundress were covered in earth.

In the time that he'd been living in the Hawkeye household, Roy had not disliked Riza, but he hadn't liked her either. He had had no opinion about her really other than that she seemed to be a quiet and angry girl. But now he determined that there was the potential for the two of them to get along, to be friends even. He sauntered over to the edge of the garden and watched her for a few moments. Riza ignored him. But when he sat down next to her and began to assist in her weed pulling she whipped her head toward him. He gave her a simple smile and turned his attention back to the garden. She continued to stare at Roy.

Who did this boy think he was? First he invaded her home, disrupting the routine of awkwardness that already existed between Riza and her father. And now after months of ignoring one another here he was _smiling_ at her. The audacity of this boy! She focused on the beads of sweat forming on his forehead, his bangs starting to stick. She moved down to his eyes – determined was how she read them. She thought back to only a few minutes before when she had admitted to being beaten often by her father. She could not deny she noticed the fire that briefly appeared on his face. Riza bit her lip. In mere moments she had begun to feel less hatred for Roy Mustang. Perhaps he could be someone in which to confide her feelings. Looking at him now and thinking of his recent actions she could see the potential for something great to happen. But for now she would let things slide – the potential, the comforting, the hatred even – and just pull weeds with the dark haired boy who had invaded her life but was suddenly seeming to have been placed there for a bigger reason.

So for the remainder of the afternoon, Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang stayed in the garden in content silence. Each had thoughts of the future on their mind, but brushed them away in order to hold onto this newfound, and perhaps brief, sense of satisfaction.

**Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think if you feel so compelled. **

**More chapters to be coming!**


	2. One Year

**Author's note: So here's chapter 2! And just a warning, this one has some graphic "images" in it so I've changed the rating to M to be safe. Also I don't think I made it really clear in the last chapter (or this one for that matter but I'm way too lazy to add it in somewhere) but Riza is 10 and Roy is 13 when they first meet. So in this chapter they're both a year older.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of its characters**

In all her 10 years of life, Riza had never had a friend. It had started from hatred and ended up in a garden. Literally, flowers had grown. Figuratively, friendship had bloomed. Of course, it had not been instantaneous. Roy's distant coldness had melted from the fiery spirit he had discovered in the girl. For her it was gradual. It began with nodding at him whenever they passed each other in the hallways, then she felt comfortable with being in the same room as him, and eventually she warmed up to the point where the two could actually hold a conversation without any hostility. And now, here was this boy – a boy whom she'd loathed for months without reason – who looked at her with joy in his eyes and she was more than delighted to call him her friend. And in Riza's eyes, calling him friend was now a valid reason to go to him whenever she was troubled, though most of her troubles occurred at night.

It was not strange that Riza suffered from nightmares. As a young child, she had been traumatized by the death of her mother and was then left in the hands of a very abusive father. For years she'd dreamed of her mother, a great fire consuming her while her father watched on with a smirk. Riza would always try to save her. She'd reach out and attempt to grab her mother only to have the flames lick away the flesh on her hands. She'd cry out and her father would laugh. It was then that Riza would awake drenched in sweat, tears in her eyes. She never dared disturb her father to comfort her. And besides, the maniacal look on his face always seemed too real to be a part of the dream. So she would sit in the darkness of her room and think about it logically: yes her mother was dead, no her father did not use his alchemy to kill her. It was a fever, that's all. And her father had tried everything in his power to make her better. Although she'd think these words over and over, it did not help to quell her frightened mind. She'd sit awake until morning.

When Roy came to stay, the nightmares did not cease (not that she expected them to). Neither did she consider going to him whenever she awoke from fear. In the development of their friendship, however, she had begun to consider it though had not acted upon it in fear that her father would find out. The man had already overreacted and given the two of them quite a beating after hearing Roy address his daughter as "Riza". Besides, Roy's room was directly across from her father's; she did not want to risk it. That is, until one night about a year after Roy had been there.

Riza's nightmare began as it usually did: she stood at the edge of their property, watching a figure off in the distance slowly coming closer.

"No!" she cried out. The figure either did not hear her or chose to ignore her and continued its advance forward. Her father came out of nowhere. He placed a hand on her shoulder, his nails crooked and yellow. They dug into her skin and he cackled. At last she could make out the figure, but for the first time it was not her mother. Rather it was Roy Mustang, young and tall, moving closer and closer to ignition. He looked calm, as though he did not realize what was coming. Riza attempted to step closer but her father's nails dug themselves further into her skin. She could smell the blood.

"Run!" she screamed. Roy glanced up in her direction but seemed to be looking beyond her. Then came a great crack through the air, a sound signifying the igniting spark. Within seconds flames engulfed the boy. His cries pierced the air and his skin charred. The smell was repulsive. Riza watched on in horror as her friend's body contorted and split into burnt fragments. The grip on her shoulder loosened and she ran to him, reaching into the fire in an effort to pull him out. Like always, the skin on her hands began to melt. They dripped into the inferno, almost helping it to burn. Her father had disappeared, fading into the thick smoke with a smirk. The two children screamed and burned together.

Riza's eyes flew open, her body lurching up into a sitting position. Her heart was racing. Sweat trickled down her face, dripping off of her chin and onto her blanket. Terror swam in her head. This nightmare had been much more vivid than any of the others. She placed her head in her hands and tried to slow her breathing. She sat like that for several minutes. She knew she could not wait until morning to make sure that Roy was safe. Pulling back the covers, she slipped out of bed. She crept through along the corridors as quietly as she could, avoiding any creaky spots. As she rounded the corner to where Roy and her father's rooms were, she paused. This was an incredibly dangerous task, but she just had to make sure that the apprentice was soundly sleeping in his bed. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Riza took a few tentative steps towards his door. Sticking to the right side of the hallway, she reached Roy's bedroom. She gripped the doorknob and twisted. She peeked inside but saw nothing but darkness. Opening the door further, she took a step inside.

"Roy," she tried to whisper, her stifled sobs making it come out louder and harsher. The boy stirred awake suddenly, sitting up in bed. She closed the door slowly so as not to make any noise. Roy squinted into the darkness. He reached for the bedside table and flicked on the lamp.

"What are you doing?" he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. When he looked up at her, he noticed the state she was in and his eyes shot open with worry. He leapt out of the bed and rushed over to her. Relieved that her friend was indeed alive, Riza closed her eyes and sighed.

"Riza, what's wrong?" His voice was pained. A half smile appeared on her face, confusion emerging on his.

"A nightmare," she replied after a few moments, opening her eyes again. Roy's eyebrows came together in concern.

"Do you want to talk about it?" The half smile vanished and fear replaced itself upon her face. She seemed to shrink back a little.

"No," she said. She opened her mouth to continue speaking but stopped herself. Oh, how badly Riza wanted to ask if she could spend the remainder of the night with him – just in case she had another nightmare, of course. But she felt it would be too much. Roy could tell that she was mulling something over. He placed a loving hand on her shoulder hoping it would comfort her. She thought of her father's nails and cringed at his touch. He pulled his hand away.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, not wanting to insult him. But he was clever, and he realized that it must have been something from her nightmare that disturbed her. He offered her the only other piece of comfort he could think of, though it could lead them to severe consequences. He swallowed before speaking.

"Do you want to sleep here tonight?" he asked confidently. Riza's head snapped up. It was as if he had read her mind. Of course she had wanted to, but it would be too absurd. The compassion in Roy's eyes, however, quickly convinced her otherwise. She gave a stiff nod. He led her by the elbow over to the bed. She sat down on the edge as he went around to the other side. The bed shifted as the boy climbed under the covers. Riza took a deep breath and dared to lie down, scooting closer to Roy. He pulled the covers over her.

"Comfortable?" She nodded and stared at the ceiling. Roy chose not to say anything further, for he believed that his friend needed the comfort of proximity and not necessarily comfort with words. He closed his eyes and drifted off back to sleep.

When he awoke later that morning, Riza was gone. Not that he had expected her to remain there – the prospect of Master Hawkeye's belt across his hide was enough explanation – but he wanted to be sure that she was alright. Never before had he seen her in such a state; it had frightened him. But Riza was like the sky: sometimes clouded with darkness but nevertheless the sun would shine again. Roy would see her later that day, a smile on her face as if nothing had ever happened.

**Riza's thoughts during the night while Roy slept will be examined further in the next chapter. So if anybody's wondering or thinking there's something missing, don't worry! It's coming :)**

**Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think if you feel so compelled.**

**P.S. Might be a while before the next chapter as I have returned to school and my creative juices may not be flowing as much. But I'll do my best to write when I can**


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